


A Victim's Tale

by thegrendel



Category: Original Work
Genre: Cults, F/M, Human Sacrifice, Theft, True Believers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 18:22:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15563733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegrendel/pseuds/thegrendel
Summary: Waldo Emerson had a girlfriend problem. The problem was that he had no girlfriend. Then this self-improvement organization promised to help with that, and to fix up his life, too. What did he have to lose? His life maybe.





	A Victim's Tale

Emerson was a professional victim. Growing up, he had been the butt of his  
playmates' jokes. He was the one they would always pick on, the one who  
"accidentally" got his nose smashed by a baseball, the one who slipped  
on a banana peel, the one who caught the measles, the one that nasty  
things always seemed to happen to.

Adulthood brought no noticeable improvement. He had dropped out of  
school when the going got rough ( _It wasn't my fault!_ ) and had  
earnestly followed the path of least resistance. The dead-end low-paying  
jobs he managed to get reflected his total lack of self-esteem. He had  
slowly drifted to the bottom of the social pyramid, and his prospects  
were approximately nil.

Of course, he was still a virgin at age 35. His pathetic attempts at  
getting a girlfriend invariably ended in comedy or catastrophe. Poor  
self-confidence and non-existent social skills do not lead down the path  
to success with the opposite sex.

 

The woman on the street handed him a leaflet.
    
    
        THE PATH TO AMAZING SELF-IMPROVEMENT:
        SUCCESS AND WEALTH IN YOUR FUTURE!
        DEMONSTRATION TONIGHT!
    

Well, what did he have to lose? His time? He really had nothing much  
to do that evening anyhow, and the woman was nice looking, and maybe,  
just maybe . . .

For all the empty seats, there must still have been a couple of hundred  
people in the old theater building draped with multicolored bunting and  
_SAS_ banners. When the tall man in an elegant three-piece suit  
ascended the podium and raised both arms heavenward, a hush fell over  
the audience.

He utterly _dominated_ the auditorium. He exuded charisma,  
mesmeric force, or whatever it is that reduces the masses to slavish  
followers. It was as if no reality existed beyond the glowing circle of  
expectant faces looking up at at him, as if everything else was but an  
illusion, a dimly-remembered dream. . . .

_The fulfillment of ALL your desires._

His voice boomed out and penetrated every dark corner and crevice of  
that vast space. It vibrated deep into Emerson's most secret places and  
resonated through his very soul. It _moved_ him.

_Self-actualization!_

The crowd was swaying back and forth in unison, craving more, screaming  
_Yes! Yes! Show us! Give us!_

The lights slowly dimmed until it was possible to see only silhouettes  
and moving shadows onstage. There! It couldn't be! It looked like, like --

Over there a dark figure seemed to be straddling another, and a few feet  
off to the side it looked as if someone was bent over with someone else  
standing behind, and . . . _No!_ Could it actually be a _sex  
orgy_ going on up there?

Without warning the lights came on again, full and bright, blindingly  
bright. When his eyes had finally adjusted, Emerson saw that the stage  
was empty. No one there. No orgy. Nothing.

Had it been illusion? A hallucination brought on by the speaker's power?  
Hypnosis? Nothing but stage magic?

 

As he filed out of the auditorium, following the departing crowd, Emerson  
mechanically stuck out his hand to accept a leaflet from someone.  
He looked up and . . . it was the same woman he had seen earlier.  
At this particular moment, she was the most beautiful woman in the world.

"Listen, Miss, uh, could you tell me, uh . . ."

Emerson had run out of words. This was as far as his limited social skills  
and failing courage could take him. The rest was up to her, or to fate,  
or to . . .

She _smiled_ at him.

All the way home he was walking on air. _She likes me. She really does._  
Maybe . . . maybe she could be my girlfriend . . . Maybe she'll even  
. . .  
Fulfill yourself. Succeed beyond your wildest dreams. Discover your  
hidden potential and become the person you were always meant to be.

The SAS Group Self-Actualization Seminar shows you how.

Sessions weekly . . .

It was the basement of an apartment high-rise in a ritzy neighborhood.  
There were about fifty persons sitting in gray-metal folding chairs,  
and well-dressed members of the Self-Actualization Seminar greeted  
every newcomer.

Emerson scanned the room for the woman, _that_ woman. There she was!  
She waved at him and smiled. _She smiled._

"Well, hi. We haven't had a chance to get to know each other. My name  
is Melina, and yours . . . ?"

"Uh . . . Emerson. Actually, Waldo Emerson, but I usually go by just  
Emerson. Waldo sounds so terribly geeky, and, uh . . ."

"Hold on there, Emerson." She was looking him straight in the eye and  
the intoxicating scent of her perfume was making him lightheaded. "Aren't  
we getting a little ahead of ourselves?"

Damn it! There he was, doing it again. Stammering and falling all over  
his feet in the presence of a woman he felt something for. Wasn't there  
_anything_ he could do right? He had been trapped in this  
never-ending nightmare all his life and sometimes he wished he could  
just roll over and die.

He stood up to leave. _Got to get away from this place. Away!_

But, her warm hand lay on his bare forearm. Her touch _burned_.  
"Stay a while," she said. He slowly collapsed back into the chair.

"There's _so much_ we could do for you." She was looking down at  
him and shaking her head. "For example, your interpersonal skill-set  
needs a major upgrade. And, of course, there's the matter of tapping  
your hidden potential."

 _Hidden potential._ The speaker at the public meeting had mentioned  
something about that, but Emerson couldn't remember exactly what. He had  
been so totally hypnotized by the sheer, stark power radiating from the  
man that . . .

"Listen, Emerson. Listen carefully. After the public presentation I'll  
come back to you. There are people here you need to see. _We can help._ "

 _Help._ Yes, damn it, help was exactly what he needed. Help getting  
a girlfriend. Help escaping from this screwed-up rut his life was in.  
Help to save him from drowning in despair.

 

"Your case has been laid before the Inner Circle. It has been decided  
that you possess certain of the special attributes characteristic of a  
High-Level Initiate. That means you can skip a number of steps in the  
program and begin all the way up at Stage 5. Congratulations, Emerson!"

Seventy-five hundred dollars. He'd have to beg, steal, or borrow that  
much to pay for the first set of lessons. It was about seventy-four  
hundred more than he had in the bank. But, no matter. He'd come up with  
it somehow. He _had_ to.

 

"Three hundred, four hundred, five. Seven thousand five hundred even."

It hadn't been easy. He'd begged a thousand from his mother, who gave  
it to him with the understanding that this was the absolute last time he  
could turn to her for help. Another five hundred he'd borrowed from the  
landlady, who had a soft spot for him, but who had all the same let him  
know in no uncertain terms that the money was to be paid back by the  
end of the month, _or else_. The remaining six thousand, he'd, well,  
_taken_ from a drawer in the payroll office at work. Stolen.

Emerson had put on the line whatever tattered shreds were left of his  
honor to raise the money. This had damn well better be worth it.

 

Fasting and going three days without sleep had brought him to the point  
of physical collapse, with a hammering headache, ringing in the ears,  
and blurry vision. Continual chanting had put him in a semi-trance and  
even his sense of _who-he-was_ had begun degrading.

When they selected him for the Ritual, it didn't occur to him to say no.  
This was the first time in his life that he had ever had any sense of  
_belonging_ , of being a part of something greater than  
himself. Even if it meant exposing himself to uncertainty. Even to danger.

 _He was stretched out on the altar, stripped utterly naked and_  
trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey. He waited for the priestess  
to perform the ceremony.
    
    
      
       "Emerson." The man spoke his name like a curse. "I hope you realize
        what a privilege you have been granted.
    
        It was the tall man, the charismatic man, the speaker at the
        meeting, the leader. Staring down Emerson with the frozen expression
        of a stone idol in a pagan temple.
    
        Emerson just sat there, gaping. His mind was totally blank.
    
       "Whatever happens, remember that without us you are nothing and
        that you belong to us now. Trust us. You must trust us."
    
        Emerson slowly nodded, but something was beginning to bother him.
        All the suffering he had endured in his life, and that should count
        for nothing? Nothing? He was a human being, damn it! And it finally
        occurred to him that maybe, just maybe, these people were exploiting
        him and the tragedy of his life. Using him . . .
    

The priestess was Melina! The woman who had promised to turn his life  
around, and now . . .

She wore a strange, Aztec-looking headdress, Emerson noticed. She had  
nothing else on. _She was stark naked_ , and she was looking down  
at him with a predatory expression. She . . . she swung her legs up and  
over, _straddled_ him, and . . . _was she actually going to_  
open herself to him? To _do_ him? She squatted over his legs  
and . . . mounted him! A surge of release as she squeezed and pumped  
and drained him of his vital juices, his life force.

Sex? This was sex? No, this was a religious observance, the little  
voice in his mind said. _So, maybe I'm not a virgin any more. But,  
what comes next?_

What came next was that Emerson had an urgent need to perform quite a  
different bodily function. His guts suddenly knotted up and . . . he  
broke wind.

"I need to use the -- "

"Phew! I can smell it." The woman laughed. "In spite of the fasting, that  
still happens to some of our initiates when their time comes. Though,  
I suppose, even if you did foul yourself it wouldn't affect the outcome  
much.

"Now, look, I'm really not supposed to do this, but, here, let me untie  
you. The restroom is the second door to the left, down the hall, and you  
come straight back here so we can finish you."

 _Finish you._ Her words reverberated through his mind as he was  
noisily evacuating his bowels. _Finish you._ As far as _he_  
was concerned, he _was_ finished. He felt completely empty inside,  
both literally and figuratively. And, he was suddenly afraid. Afraid of  
what would come next. He had seen the gleam of what looked like a metal  
blade strapped inside her thigh. A knife? To _finish him_? He  
was terrified. His bowels turned to water. Again.

_So, this is how it ends? I finally lose my virginity, and then die?_  
_Ha, ha. Very funny. My whole life has been nothing but a rotten joke_  
_leading up to this. And, now comes the punchline. It all ends here with_  
_a bang. With my throat slit and belly opened up, with my blood and_  
_guts spilling out on that stupid altar, just so this fucked up bunch of_  
_assholes can summon those fucked up Dark Forces that give them power._

_Bull-fucking-shit! Maybe it's time I finally started taking_  
_responsibility for myself. Sure, probably I'll die anyway, but at_  
_least I'll die fighting. I won't let them lead me like a steer to the slaughterhouse!_

There was a window high up on the back wall of the restroom. It had a  
heavy mesh screen bolted in front of it. By precariously balancing atop  
the tank of the toilet he had just flushed, Emerson might just manage  
to reach up and . . . 

. . . A corner of the screen was loose! He rocked it back and forth  
as cascades of rust flakes fluttered down into his hair, and then  
another corner broke free. This has to work, he thought. Has to!  
He pulled himself up, up by a death-grip on the bottom edge of the screen,  
up . . . and just managed to jam his left forearm under the loose bottom  
of the screen. There was some kind of bar or cross-piece underneath that  
his flailing hand grabbed on to. Now, let go with the right hand and join  
it to the left. Got it! Jump! Pull yourself up, wedge the screen back,  
and . . . and the toilet tank collapsed underneath him with a clatter  
loud enough to wake the dead. 

_The dead. I'm dead if they heard that._

Raw terror and adrenaline gave him the strength he had always lacked.  
The strength to save himself. The strength to pull himself up and . . .  
_out_. Out through the shattered glass of the window. Out, lunging  
head first, bleeding from a hundred cuts. Then, staggering across the  
immaculately manicured lawn, and running, running for his life . . . 

Several months later he saw the headlines. 
    
    
       45 ARRESTED IN BUST OF BIZARRE MURDER-CULT
       LEADERS STILL AT LARGE
       MASS GRAVES OF "SACRIFICE VICTIMS" UNCOVERED
       OBSCENE RITUALS!
       SEX ORGIES AND BLOODY DEATH!
    

"Garstang Agency. How may I help direct your call?" 

"Put me through to Mr. Walson. Tell him it's Emerson, and it's urgent." 

"Please hold." 

"Hello? Joe!" 

"Yeah, Waldo." 

"Well, the DA's office let the cat out of the bag. The bastards! They had  
promised me they'd wait til the end of the year before breaking the  
story. Is there any way we can move up the publication date of  
_A Victim's Tale_ and tie in all this publicity with the book promo tour?" 


End file.
